I don’t know exactly when I’ll start my Christmas shopping, but I know when I won’t be doing it.

Black Friday is out because I don’t really enjoy being in the midst of crowds of crazy people. I’d rather participate in the Running of the Bulls in Pamploma, Spain.

And I certainly won’t be doing any shopping Thanksgiving evening.

I have a rare Thanksgiving off this year, and I intend to spend it enjoying my family — not shopping.

I’m not sure how anybody came to believe that shopping is fun. It is not. While it has its rare moments (like when you find the perfect item at half price) it generally ranks on the fun scale about half a notch below doing laundry.

I’ll take relaxing and talking with family members over dealing with hordes of wild-eyed shoppers any day.

If I were smarter, I’d have my shopping wrapped up for this year already, so I could actually enjoy the holiday season. I haven’t ever managed to do that, but there’s always next year.

If you like the idea of hooking one holiday into another, maybe you should back it up to Halloween. Perhaps next year I’ll begin promoting the concept of beginning one’s Christmas shopping on Halloween night, after the last trick-or-treater has left. It’ll at least keep all of us out of the leftover Halloween candy.

But the absolute worst time to begin your shopping is Thanksgiving evening. I feel sorry for people who work retail and who have to give up a holiday because people who could be buying a sweater for Aunt Mabel on any other day of the year feel they must do so on Thanksgiving evening, meaning the cashiers have to skip or cut short their holiday to accommodate them.

Some people must work on major holidays — police officers, nurses, gas station attendants, journalists — but there is no reason whatsoever that retail employees should have to join their ranks.

By refraining from shopping on Thanksgiving evening, at least you know you aren’t contributing to this problem. If nobody showed up on Thanksgiving evening to shop, stores wouldn’t have any reason to schedule their employees to work.

There’s a Facebook meme going around that says it best: “Only in America do people trample over others for sales exactly one day after being thankful for what they already have.”

Of course, the stores that merge Black Friday into Black Thanksgiving Evening take this a step further. “Only in America do people trample over others for sales a couple of hours after claiming to be thankful for what they already have.”

Page 2 of 2 - All I’m saying is, if you’re one of these folks with the tradition of everyone around the table taking turns saying in slightly different ways that this year they’re thankful for their family and friends, good taste dictates that you wait more than a couple of hours before ditching everybody to go shopping.

Christmas will be here soon enough. Keep Thanksgiving for Thanksgiving.

The cashiers and sales people at your favorite stores will be thankful if you do.

Editor Michelle Teheux may be reached at 346-1111, ext. 661, or at mteheux@pekintimes.com.